BITS & PIECES OF A MISPLACED LIFE: MUSIC

“I don’t know anything about music.  In my line you don’t have to.”

               Elvis Presley in Oxymoronica


OOPS -- MISTAKE IN THE OPERA MADAME BUTTERFLY

"When Suzuki Butterfly's maid, prays at an alleged Buddhist shrine, she sings to the tune of 'Takai Yama,' a song that extols cucumbers and eggplants. Furthermore, she garbles the names of Shinto gods, who don't belong in a Buddhist setting to begin with. It's similar, Groos writes, to 'having a Catholic pray to Adam and Eve in front of a menorah."

Alex Ross. "Reorienting 'Butterfly,' in  a reviewing Madame Butterfly/Madama Batafurai by Arthur Groos in The New Yorker (Oct. 30, 2023)

**

On the song "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life"


"On January 20,2009, it officially became the number
one most requested song at British funerals, replacing 
Frank Sinatra's 'My Way.' It has remained there ever
since. Beating out even Elvis. You've got to love the
Brits. First of all, who would even have such a chart?
And secondly, of course, you don't get paid for funerals,
but hey, you take it where you can. It probably replaced
'Spam, Spam, Spam' at Viking funerals."

Eric Idle. Always Look on the Bright Side of Life: a
Sortabiography (New York: Crown Archetype, 2018)

**
THE MUSIC OF JAMES D'ANGELO
 
https://www.jamesdangelomusic.com/biography/

Severnside Composers Alliance, Space Time Sounds, 12 November 2018
 Severnside Composers Alliance May 2018
 Planet Tree Music Festival, Hampstead, October 2017


**

ARTURO TOSCANINI

Arturo Toscanini
Conducting Tosca in Ni-
ce, France, was greeted with thuderous applause.
Why? Because... Because...Because.

**
THE FIRST GOLD RECORD 

"That Silver-haired Daddy of Mine" written by Jimmy Long and Gene Autry. A month after that song was released in 1932  it sold 30,000 copies.

" A year later, Art Sattherly met with Bev Barnett, my first press agent, and an idea was born: a gold-plated copy of 'Silver-haired Daddy' to celebrate the half-millionth record sold. When the sales hit a million, they gave me another one. And that was the start of the gold record tradition."

Gene Autry, with Mickey Hershowitz. Back in the Saddle Again (New York: Doubleday & Company, 1978)
**

FROM MUSIC HISTORIAN BILLY J. ALTMAN

Re "Gold" records: Not to denigrate Mr. Autry, but starting in the early '30s, record companies often gave their artists silver and gold plated copies of their hit songs, mostly as company promo stunts to show they'd been successful. Still, most historians agree that the first time a song was really recognized as a million-selling gold record was in 1942, when RCA presented one to Glenn Miller for "Chattanooga Choo Choo" on a national radio broadcast. The Recording Industry Association of America finally began formally certifying gold records in 1958, and the first one was Perry Como's "Catch a Falling Star."

**

 SHORE IN 2002 PICKED THE GREATEST
FILM SCORES OF ALL TIME


1. A Double Life (1947) -- Miklos Rozsa
2. The Heiress (1949) -- Aaron Copland)
3. The Man With the Golden Arm (1959)-- Elmer Bernstein
4. Touch of Evil (1948)--Henry Mancini 
5. La Dolce Vita (1963) -- Nina Rota
6. Woman in the Dunes (1964) --Toro Takematsu
7. Magic (1972)-- John Williams
8. Taxi Driver (1975  ) --Bernard Hermann)
9.  Days of Heaven (1978 )-- Ennid Morricom?
l0. Altered States (1980. ) -- John Coriglian

Premier Magazine  (September 2002)

How different would the above list be if it were compiled
today?
**
FILM MUSIC IN THE FAMOUS SHOWER SCENE IN ALFRED HITCHCOCK'S PSYCHO

"The strings taut, internal shrieking  expressed the stifled nonstop scream that one would feel at a moment like
that . (Janet Leigh) was barely even screaming. The music
did that for her."

                                film composer Danny Elfman

**

ABOUT THE MUSICAL INSTRUMENT KNOWN
AS THE KAZOO


'1884, American English, a commercial name, probably an alteration of earlier bazoo "trumpet" (1877), which probably is ultimately imitative (compare bazooka). In England, formerly called a Timmy Talker, in France, a mirliton.

Kazoos, the great musical wonder, ... anyone can play it; imitates fowls, animals, bagpipes, etc. [1895 Montgomery Ward catalogue, p.245]"

Mostly "etc."

 ONLINE ETYMOLOGICAL DICTIONARY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBae5fYg66Y

**
BILLIE HOLIDAY IS SINGING & I'M FEELING SO SAD

Good morning, heartache.
Oh don't tell me what kind
Of a dog-assed day it's going to be.
Let me find out for myself.
Here comes a long clarinet solo,
Sex without foreplay.
Let's knock the bitch around a little longer.
Take a quick look at the bed
& head for another town.

Hardship is one kind of music,
Flump of thev feds sitting on her head
Because she ain't
Completely hobbled by cocaine yet.
The world with its hot rods
Of whoring & whining}
Is smarter than anyone knows,
No matter what is sad,

No matter what is sd,
No matter how it is sd,
No matter how much hardship,
How much pain struggles
Into her throat.
Hardship is the music.
Give the piano player a drink, &
Shake it for all you is worth.

Billie Holiday is singing
  & I'm feeling so sad.


Louis Phillips